


Perils of Motherhood

by miss_nettles_wife



Category: Eerie Indiana
Genre: F/M, Found Family, Mother-Son Relationship, Motherhood, Pregnancy, Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 20:14:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14172561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_nettles_wife/pseuds/miss_nettles_wife
Summary: Some people are born to be mothers. Some people choose motherhood. Some people have motherhood thrust upon them. Some people are all three. (Written for the Eerie Indiana DW Com Easter challenge)





	Perils of Motherhood

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Easter!

Marylin hadn’t wanted any more children.

Two suited her perfectly fine. Marshall had her creativity, and Syndi had Edgar’s rational mind. Syndi had come along maybe a little bit earlier than she might have hoped to begin her family, after all, Edgar was only nineteen, and she was just barely twenty, but they made it work.

When she was twenty three, she started getting an ache deep on the inside that she knew was a desire to have another baby. When she talked to Edgar, now her husband, about it, he confirmed that he was feeling the same way and they decided to act on it while Syndi was still young enough to bond with them. 

Marshall was born so little that none of the baby clothes that they had for him fit right and he always looked like he was swimming in every romper and baby suit. When she compared a picture of him to a picture of her as a baby, they were indistinguishable. Everyone said so, from the doctor that delivered him via Cererian section when the lining of her placenta began pulling away prematurely to her own mother, who described him as cute as a button.

Marylin was inclined to agree. She’s so swept up in her life as a mother of two that she almost forgets how when Marshall was born, every fluorescent light in the hospital burnt out.

When Marshall was nineteen, he came to her and told her that Janet Donner was pregnant and he didn’t know what to do about it. She knew Janet Donner from the many hours she’d spent sprawled out in her living room watching Comander Kody, spilling into the attic and going to Prom with Marshall in an aqua straight cut dress. She was Marshall’s girlfriend and much approved of. Janet had a good head on her shoulders and got good grades. She also didn’t need a great deal of mothering from Marylin, she had her own beloved mother.

She also knew about Janet from the sides of milkboxes and faded missing posters taped to streetlights but like everyone else, she takes pains not to mention any of that.

After some discussion, Janet moved in with them, and they decorated Syndi’s old room as a nursery. Some people are born mothers. Her sister wayward sister Leah, before her untimely death (which need not be elaborated here, but rest assured was suitably strange) had often said so, when Marylin was combing out her hair or letting her sleep off her hangover on her and Edgar’s old floral couch. She’d thought that Janet was exactly the same.

Janet fussed over names and the exact pastel yellow she wanted the room to be. She coaxed Marshall out to look at clothes and bassinets. She convinced him that they really did need another teddy bear, and listened to classical music the same way all the books told her too. Marylin had thought she was a mother as well, before Marshall left. She’d noticed he was spending more time alone with Simon, but she had thought it was just nerves and that things would get better soon. She had been so swept up preparing things with Janet, who had a mother, that she hadn’t even noticed Marshall drifting further and further away from them and naturally, taking Simon with him.

Simon Holmes needed a mother. Marylin had done her best to be a good neighbor, she really had, but Mrs Holmes had never been a friend of hers. In fact, neither had Mister Holmes. It was an unspoken thing that everyone was expected to observe. The Eerie Lake boils randomly, VHS tapes sometimes play the wrong thing, Mr Radford has never aged. You don’t interrupt anyone else’s parenting. Even if they really deserve it. Marylin had tried to observe these rules, she really had. But his parents didn’t want him, and she did. What is a woman to do, if she sees children in need?

When Harley needs someone, she adopts him into her growing brood without hesitation. The speaking Latin thing could be worked around.

Marshall and Simon went out one morning, though she doesn’t know what for. She does remember Marshall kissed Janet goodbye and gave her an unusually long hug. She had thought it was odd, but not odder than usual. Things in Eerie are odd by default. But they didn’t come back. They still haven’t. That night that sprinted around town, looking in with friends and into shops. After that, they put up posters and had press conferences. People branded him a teenage runaway, until his bike floated to the top of Lake Eerie. She knows he’s alive, she’s pretty sure that she’d fee it if he wasn’t, mothers intuition.

Dash started spending more time at the house with Janet, who was beginning to drift away herself. Dash X was another child who needed a mother. He just showed up one day, but she didn’t question it. The same way she never questioned those marks on the back of his hands. They were a part of him, and he, quite against his will at first, was a part of her family, gravelly voice and all.

Ines Simone Donner was born small, via caesarian section when Janet’s placenta began pulling away prematurely. She was born with wispy grey hairs and on the back of her tiny hands, there was a little cross, and a little Dash. The doctor mistakenly thought that Dash was the father and asked him to cut the cord that had kept her safe for nine long months. Nine months is not even a year, and yet in that time all of their lives had changed forever. Janet’s mother is there too, her father waiting outside with Edgar.

Even drugged against the pain, Janet held her, but no one took any pictures because she really looked like she didn’t want to and was only doing so out of duty. As far as mother went, Janet didn’t last long. About two weeks, to be exact. She did seem to love Ines, that was something Marylin never doubted, but it was Dash she took issue with. Dash had been staying with them for a while now, and listening to Janet was starting to get onto all of their nerves. No one was that surprised when she took off after Marshall. She left custody to Marylin and Edgar over her on parents, which she explains in her notes, because she thinks that they can protect her from Eerie in a way her own parents cannot. This caused a rift between them and her parents that has never been closed.

When Ines starts calling her mommy, she doesn’t correct her. She might not have planned on having more children, but if they needed her than she damn well wasn’t going to turn them away. Sometimes motherhood is difficult, and about making difficult choices that will turn out being what’s best for your child.

Dash never left, either. He probably should have gone after Simon, Marshall, and Janet, but he didn’t. He had a real soft spot for Ines, too. Ines liked him back, occasionally taking the time to admire their matching marks in her innocent childlike way. She has no idea that she’s different, and if Marylin has her way, never will. It’s all just surface stuff. She might have the same superficial features as Dash, but her eyes? They were all Marshall.

Sometimes motherhood is difficult, sometimes motherhood is unexpected, sometimes motherhood is rewarding.

Sometimes motherhood is as simple as letting Dash use a tire iron to beat the ever-loving shit out of an Easter bunny costumed freak who tried to kidnap your youngest daughter for ritual sacrifice.


End file.
